Theodore
Robert "Ted" Bundy (born Theodore Robert Cowell; November 24, 1946 -
January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and
necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls
during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of
denials, he confessed shortly before his execution to 30 homicides
committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978; the true total remains
unknown, and could be much higher.

Bundy was regarded as handsome
and charismatic by his young female victims, traits he exploited in
winning their trust. He typically approached them in public places,
feigning an injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure,
before overpowering and assaulting them at a more secluded location. He
sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes for hours at a time,
grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses until
putrefaction and destruction by wild animals made further interaction
impossible. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept some of the
severed heads in his apartment for a period of time as mementos. On a
few occasions he simply broke into dwellings in the dead of night and
bludgeoned victims as they slept.

Initially incarcerated in Utah
in 1975 for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault, Bundy
became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in
multiple states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two
dramatic escapes and committed multiple additional assaults, including
three murders, before his ultimate recapture in Florida in 1978. He
received three death sentences in two separate trials for the Florida
homicides.

Ted Bundy died in the electric chair at Raiford Prison
in Starke, Florida, on January 24, 1989. Biographer Ann Rule described
him as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain
and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death, and
even after." He once called himself "...the most cold-hearted son of a
bitch you'll ever meet." Attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last
defense team, agreed. "Ted," she wrote, "was the very definition of
heartless evil."

David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco; June 1, 1953), also
known as the Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American
serial killer convicted of a series of shooting attacks that began in
the summer of 1976. Perpetrated with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver, the
shootings continued for over a year, leaving six victims dead and seven
others wounded. As the toll mounted, Berkowitz eluded a massive police
manhunt while leaving brazen letters which promised further murders.
Highly publicized in the press, the killings terrorized the people of
New York City and achieved worldwide notoriety.

After his arrest
by New York police in August 1977, Berkowitz was indicted for eight
shooting incidents. Berkowitz confessed to all of them and claimed that
he was commanded to kill by a demon that possessed his neighbor's dog.
In the course of the police investigation, Berkowitz was also implicated
in a vast number of acts of arson in the city, all previously
unidentified with him.

Intense coverage of the case by the media
lent a kind of celebrity status to Berkowitz, and observers noted
indignantly that he appeared to enjoy it. In response, the New York
legislature enacted new legal statutes, known popularly as "Son of Sam
laws", designed to keep criminals from profiting financially from the
publicity surrounding their crimes. Despite various amendments and legal
challenges, the statutes have remained law in New York, and similar
laws have been enacted in several other states.

Berkowitz has
been imprisoned since his arrest and is serving six life sentences
consecutively. In the mid-1990s, he amended his confession to claim that
he had been a member of a murderous Satanic cult that orchestrated the
incidents as ritual murder. Though he remains the only person ever
charged with the shootings, some law enforcement authorities have argued
that Berkowitz's claims are credible. A new investigation into the
murders was launched in 1996 but suspended indefinitely after
inconclusive findings.

Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee on May 21, 1960. He killed his
first murder victim, Steven Hicks, with a blow to the head in 1978.
Dahmer killed 17 men, molesting some of them, between 1978 to 1991. Once
caught, he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in 1992. On
November 28, 1994, Dahmer was murdered by fellow prisoner Christopher
Scarver.

Serial killer Gary Leon Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949, in Salt
Lake City, Utah. He held a job painting trucks for 30 years and was
married three times. He began murdering women in 1982. He was caught in
2001 when a DNA test revealed a match. He told investigators he killed
as many as 60 women along Route 99 in south King County, Washington. He
was sentenced to life in prison.

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